According to the FIR, the constables had stopped a car after its passengers, a man and a woman, were caught behaving ‘unethically’. The woman called her friends, who came in two vehicles and kidnapped the constables after beating them up.

Mahmoodur Rasheed denied involvement in the case. He said that the vehicle initially stopped by the police wasn’t his. His son, Hasan Rasheed, had gone to help his friends after the police asked for a bribe, he remarked.